Mr Nilsson's cottage

The apricot which we'd forgotten about because it lives behind an army of black bamboo and two roses and a huge, overgrown flax plant, is enjoying its position on the hillside and is producing small, hard, sweet apricots in the palest shade of yellow that taste intensely, the skin cracking under the bursting flavor. I love that I ventured up the hill this morning in my riding boots, through the jungle and flax and bamboo, and stuffed my pockets full of the little things like a child stealing apples from the neighbors' tree. As a consequence, I now have a tummy ache, just like a child.

There is a picture of Bumbles Tea Room on the sill in my office, next to Noony age 7 doing AYSO. It's from my friend Chris, and he notes on the back "St Ives Cornwall - very groovy artist community" and I wonder whether this is my destiny. Imagine a tea room where the fat and jolly lady with the rosy cheeks who runs it really is called Bumble? A few chickens in the back for the egg sandwiches. Some tomatoes growing up the wall. An apricot tree, of course, and Bob's your uncle. I love that people send me bee stuff. My collection is swelling.

Briar is beginning to look like Popeye. Her front end is big and muscled and strong, and her back legs are skinny and puny. Her shoulders and chest carry the rest of her along, and her back legs just follow, going through the motions. Often now, I have to help her up, because she just can't propel herself up from behind.

We are all trying to figure out how to fit 5 adults, 5 teenagers and 2 littles into the summerhouse in Norway. There are two ship's cabins with bunk beds, one cellar room with two beds, and two normal sized rooms each with two beds. That's ten beds for twelve people. My mother, ever brilliant, may I say, having been emboldened, one assumes, by the man with the scythe who helped her cut the lawn today (he believes in God and Jesus and doesn't like swearing so she got a ticking off when she said the Norwegian equivalent of "oh this bloody grass is a pain" or something like that), has been to visit Mr. Nilsson, the old ship's engineer who has a sign up for a room to let. Mr. Nilsson, who is dead I think, lives in what J likes to call the scrappiest house on the street. His is the garden with the wind chimes in various shapes and sizes, the pink flamingos perching precariously on one leg, the garden gnomes, the flower-shaped windmills and he has bad 50s nylon flower-print curtains in the window. But, as if by magic, Mr. Nilsson (or his heir apparent) has a little hut behind the house which is apparently rather nice - with a bunk bed and a normal bed, a little kitchen, a loo and a sitting room of sorts. What a perfect little summerhouse for a 12, 13 and 14-year old girl, I think to myself. They could play house and wake up to the sound of the cows mooing right by the water (as they do). My aunt, bless her heart, is certainly not going to offer to house anyone in her house. She's a grumpy old thing. With beautiful, piano-playing fingers. But not what I like to call blessed with the generosity gene. So my mother, excited as can be, calls me, pleased as punch. I told her she should have a summer romance with the religious grass cutter and she giggled girlishly.